


It's Empty in the Valley of Your Heart

by akatonbo



Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Afterlife, Angst with a Happy Ending, Buckets of Happy Tears, But No One Dies in It, Canonical Character Death, Everyone in This Fic is Dead, Javert's Suicide, M/M, Many Untagged Characters Appear in Minor Roles, Valjean's Garden, Which is Revisited a Few Times
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-16
Updated: 2018-06-16
Packaged: 2019-05-23 22:36:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14942654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akatonbo/pseuds/akatonbo
Summary: Jean Valjean dies, and discovers a Heaven more wondrous than he ever imagined, where he is reunited with family and friends, and he can do anything he can dream of. But there is one person missing from this paradise, and saving Javert from himself will not be easy.





	It's Empty in the Valley of Your Heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheLifeOfEmm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLifeOfEmm/gifts).



> Ok, so, now that we're off anon: many heartfelt thanks to [fulldaysdrive](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fulldaysdrive/) for beta-reading, to Emm herself for being my "augh this story is totally out of hand aaaaaa deadline aaaaaaaaaaaa" buddy for the last few weeks (including the week between the official deadline and the story reveals, ahaha) not realizing that I was writing for her the whole time, and to a whole host of people in Sewerchat and various other chat servers I frequent, some of which are not even Les Mis related, for cheering me on while I wrote the longest story I've ever finished in my life (to this point). 
> 
> This story is loosely based on the movie What Dreams May Come, minus a lot of bullshit about suicide that was in the movie. I already had this idea before I saw the prompt for an "I will drag you to heaven come hell or high water" afterlife AU in my assignment, and it could easily have been at least twice as long; I condensed a lot to keep it a length I could write in two months. 
> 
> I worked mostly with brick canon, but I did borrow a few things from the musical: Fantine escorting Valjean to heaven, because it suited the way I wanted to tell the story, and Javert returning to the barricade after the fighting is over, because it got me unstuck at the point where I used it. You can consider it brick fic with musical/movie seasoning. 
> 
> Emm, I hope you enjoy this story as much as I enjoyed writing it and as much as I have enjoyed reading your stories! Getting to write this thing that I wanted to write, but probably would never have gotten around to on my own, is at least as good a gift as anything else I'm likely to receive from this exchange.

Jean Valjean died with Cosette on one side of him and Marius on the other, each of them clutching one of his hands, pressing kisses to his knuckles and wetting his papery skin with their tears. At long last, after his self-imposed exile, he basked in the presence of his beloved child. As his sight slowly greyed out and the sound of their voices faded away into nothingness, he was as happy as he had been in months, and all the while, he thought he could feel the kind eyes of Monseigneur Bienvenu, the Bishop of Digne, watching over him.

Eventually, there was no sound, no sight, no light; there was nothing at all. 

*

"Monsieur le maire?"

Startled by the voice, Jean Valjean opened his eyes to see Fantine standing at the foot of the bed.

"Oh, how silly of me to call you that! Of course you haven't been the mayor for years, only it's been so long since the last time I saw you, M'sieur, and you were still the mayor then, and I haven't been this close to my Cosette in all that time -- you'll have to forgive me for being so scatterbrained at a time like this, M'sieur, but I wouldn't let anyone else meet you, not after everything you've done for my little girl."

The last time he saw Fantine was the day she died. She had wasted away to skin and bones from her illness; she was pale as death and flushed with fever, her hair unevenly shorn and streaked with grey, and where her front teeth had once been, there was a gaping hole. Now she was radiant. Her hair fell in golden waves around her face, round and practically glowing with happiness, and her smile was like a neat row of pearls between her lips. This was Fantine as she must have looked before any misfortune befell her.

She was the only solid thing in the room, he realized suddenly; he had sat up in the bed to look at her, but he could see his own arms, which he could not feel, stretched out to either side of him, insubstantial, in the grasp of an equally insubstantial Cosette and Marius, who were unmoving. For a moment he could not understand what had happened, how he had passed from that moment to this one. The bed itself was translucent as well; he held a hand up in front of his face, and that, which he moved by himself, was solid.

"You have died," Fantine said, and it was not truly a surprise, for he had known that he was dying, yet to hear it... 

"What happens now?" he asked, a bit overwhelmed. 

"First, you get out of bed. You'll find your strength has returned."

Indeed, it had; he made to climb out of the bed and, although the sensation as he ceased to overlap his body was strange, he noticed at once that he no longer felt even the day to day aches and pains that had become normal after six decades, let alone the frailty of these last months and weeks.

"Take my hand, M'sieur, and close your eyes."

He did so, and a moment later he heard her say, "Now open them," and did, and he did not know if he was more astonished by what he saw, or by the fact that he knew what he saw, for before him was Jeanne's cottage in Faverolles, and there too was Pierre, her husband, chopping firewood in the side yard. It had been so long, at least three lifetimes ago it seemed, since he last set foot in Faverolles, that until that very moment he would have sworn that, even if his life had depended on it, he could neither describe nor recognize the little house where he had once lived with his sister and her seven children, nor her long-dead husband, and yet he knew in his bones what and whom he saw.

"M'sieur, we are here," Fantine called out. Pierre looked up, and when he saw them, he smiled broadly and shouted, "Jeanne! Your brother's here!"

Everything seemed to happen in a blur after that. He was in his sister's arms, and then he was sitting in her kitchen, covered in children who were calling him Uncle Jean, while Fantine laughed in delight and Jeanne told her stories about each of them. Tears rolled down his face -- tears of joy, to see them all again, and tears of sorrow, as he learned of what befell them after he was arrested, and tears he did not even know the cause of, only that he was overwhelmed. For so long he was alone in the world, and then there was Cosette, and then he had separated himself from even her, and it had killed him... now he was surrounded by family he had all but forgotten, and their hands were laid over his or on his shoulders, their arms were around him, the children clung to his arms and legs, and he could not speak for joy.

After a while of this, Fantine asked, "Would you like to remain here for a while, M'sieur? Or I can show you where you may rest, or bring you to some of the other people who have been expecting you," and he took his leave of his sister's family. "You must promise to return soon, and often," Jeanne said. "Oh, and we can check in on little Thomas, who lives in Paris." In Paris! Would that he had known! 

Fantine bade him close his eyes again, and this time when he opened them he was standing in the garden at the convent of Petit-Picpus. When he saw that, it was he who called out, "My brother!" and Fauchelevent came running out of the melon patch, faster than he was able to in life at any time after the incident with the cart, to embrace him and exclaim over him, laughing, "Ah, one day I must introduce you to our other brother, the real Ultime," and Valjean replied, "And I will introduce you to our sister Jeanne," and they shared more laughter and tears still. 

It was only just beginning to sink in that he could have this, that he was truly free now.

The next time Fantine asked, he realized how tired he really was, and they parted from Fauchelevent. "I think it is time that I rest now. Do we sleep, here?"

"We do not need it in quite the same way, M'sieur, and time does not pass in quite the same way, but while our bodies no longer need to rest, our minds and souls may, and so we sleep."

"You need not call me M'sieur," he told her belatedly. "My true name is Jean Valjean, and you may call me Jean, or whatever else you wish. Surely we are all equals here."

"I know who you are," she said with a smile. "I have known since I died. Jean, then. But old habits are hard to break. Now, this time when you close your eyes, you must think of where you want to go."

"I do not know where I want to go. Only someplace where I may safely rest for the night."

"There is a place here for you as there is for everyone. Your sister's family shares their home by choice, but there are no nuns in Fauchelevent's convent; they have their own homes, and the cloister you saw is only scenery. Yours can be anything you can remember or imagine, and you can make changes at any time. You won't be bound to decisions you make now, nor do you have to make them consciously. Only think of the idea of home, and your soul will provide a starting point."

He closed his eyes... and was struck by the thought that he scarcely knew what 'home' meant, apart from Cosette, and as she was still in the world of the living, he was not sure that was any help. None of the places he once lived with her held any place in his heart without her; in truth they would feel empty, as he would only wish she were there. 

"You can open your eyes again," Fantine said.

What he saw when he opened them was not anything like any of the places he and Cosette had lived together, for all their life together was in Paris, and this was a small country house with a large garden, surrounded by sunny meadows. At least half of the garden was empty, the soil freshly tilled.

"It suits you."

"I... I suppose that it does." He was overwhelmed with questions, but he could not find the words to ask them.

"I will take my leave now and let you rest or explore as you will, and return when you are ready tomorrow, or what passes for it. If there is anything you need or want, you need only think of it." Even as she spoke the words, a ripe pear appeared in her hand, and she gave it to him. "For your breakfast, M'sieur," she said with a laugh, and then she was gone. 

He was so tired that he scarcely looked at the house, only walked inside and went straight to what he knew, despite never having seen it before, was his own bedroom, crawled into the bed, and fell soundly asleep in moments.

*

The morning was like waking into a dream. The bed was so comfortable he was loath to get out of it, and when he did, he wondered if he spent all of 'yesterday' wearing the nightshirt he died in, or if he was at some point properly dressed and then managed to remember to change as he went to bed. He couldn't remember, and it all did not feel quite real yet.

The house, when he ventured out into it, was small but well-kept, with a second bedroom, a sitting room with a fireplace and a well-stocked bookshelf, and a proper kitchen with a cooking hearth. Fantine's pear was on the kitchen table, and he picked it up and took a bite. The pear was perfectly ripe and delicious, and he made short work of it, suddenly hungry.

Before he could go out to explore the garden, there was a knock on his door. When he opened it, expecting Fantine, the Bishop of Digne was standing there, younger than when Valjean met him, but his eyes just as kind, and Valjean could not even manage to greet him before he burst into tears, and then the bishop was embracing him, telling him how well he had lived out the man's hopes for him, and it only made him weep more.

He did not know how much time had passed before he could speak without it turning into more tears -- he supposed time had no meaning now anyway, but it was still an embarrassingly long time, and the shoulders of the bishop's shirt were incriminatingly damp by the time he recovered enough to invite the man in. Even having regained the ability to speak, he still wept throughout their conversation as he told the bishop about how he came to be the mayor of Montreuil-sur-Mer, and then the subject turned to the end of his life, and while he avoided sobbing in the man's arms again as he confessed all his despair over Cosette growing up and replacing the love of a father with the love of a husband, and his guilt for resenting Marius for taking her from him, it was a near thing. 

"I have taken up too much of your time, Monseigneur," he said finally, getting up from the table.

"Now, that is impossible," the bishop said, standing as well. "Here, everything takes up as exactly as much of our time as we want it to. And I am no more a bishop than you are; I hold no title here. Please, call me Charles, and I would be pleased if I may call you Jean."

"The thing you called me that changed my life near as much as giving me the silver and my freedom with it was 'brother'. I have tried ever since to be worthy of it, and though I know we are all brothers and sisters in the eyes of the Lord, I can only see where I am lacking. But now that we are here... I will try. I hope you will not be offended if it takes me some time to call you by your Christian name."

"I think you will find it comes faster than you expect, my brother Jean, being here. There is no inequity, no oppression, no shame here. It is true that, in the living world, the welcome and forgiveness I gave to you were far rarer than they should have been, but here you will find them at every turn, and you will heal. Everyone becomes their best self here."

The bishop went on his way, but was followed soon after by Fantine, who found him examining his new garden, a bit lost in planning what he might like to add or change. 

"Good morning, Jean! I see you've already had a visitor. I expect there will be many more soon, but I thought I should show you how to see the living world, for I'm sure you are as eager as I am to see Cosette."

Eager was perhaps an understatement, but he endeavored to be patient and let Fantine explain.

"Because time is different here, you may be surprised, sometimes, by the way it has passed in the living world. Almost always, it will seem that more time has passed there than here, but there is no direct correlation." Fantine led him to an ornate mirror on the wall of his sitting room, one he was sure had not been there before. "Looking in is easy. It is just like traveling; you need only think of what you want to see, a person or a place."

The image in the mirror changed from the reflection of the sitting room to the garden at the Gillenormand house, where Cosette was weeding the strawberry patch and, to his surprise, singing -- that is, he was surprised because he could hear her sing, as clear and pure as ever. "Fantine, this is amazing..." 

"I must tell you now, Jean, particularly after the way your life ended... you cannot spend all your time watching her. I don't mean just that there are things you should not see, when she is behind closed doors alone or with her husband, but also... the living world is for the living. We are not part of it any longer. Life in paradise may seem like endless, aimless leisure at first glance, but it is not -- we have our own purposes here. If you become consumed with watching her, or anything in the living world, first you will lose sound, then color and clarity, and finally it will no longer show you anything at all. Not forever -- you would be given access again eventually -- but bear it in mind."

"It is wise that you warned me," Valjean admitted. "Being here is wondrous... but in life all my joy came from Cosette, or from helping others in need, and I do not imagine there are any in need here."

"Not in the way that you mean, but there is work to be done. Everyone has wounds of the heart to heal, lessons they did not learn in life or did not fully absorb, old conflicts to resolve... it is much easier and gentler here, but still work, and the most unexpected people may take part in another's growth. Then there is the work we do because we love it, or love the ones we do it for. You can have a ripe tomato in your hand whenever you wish, but if it brings you pleasure to tend the plants, then growing them is worthwhile work. And while you do not need anyone else to make you a new shirt, or a piping hot meal, or a chair for your kitchen table, many people find the work that others have done out of love is better than what they, who do not know how to make something with their own hands, can imagine -- there is a lively trade of handmade goods here. And then also there is the work of paradise itself. What I do is part of that, teaching newly arrived souls what to do."

"Does everyone have such a job?"

"Not all, nor even most, but many. You will be invited once you have settled into your life, and you may accept or decline as you like; it is paradise, after all."

They spoke for a while, about the way things worked, about Cosette, and even about Montreuil-sur-Mer, and all the while Fantine guided him in understanding the possibilities of his new existence and experimenting. Eventually Fantine took her leave again, and his house was quiet... for a short time.

*

The first visitor was the young leader of the June rebellion, who came to pay his respects both for Valjean's aid on the barricade, and his ability to stick to his principles about killing while still providing such valuable help, and they spoke about French society and about the economy of paradise. 

And then the floodgates opened. 

Some of the other boys -- and one girl -- from the barricade came as well, and shared their stories in exchange for his. There were people who had known him in Montreuil-sur-Mer, some he did not even remember, who apologized for having thought ill of him after his arrest, and people he had given money to who told him how he had changed their lives. Even a pair he had never met, who turned out to be Georges Pontmercy and his wife, the younger daughter of M. Gillenormand, came to thank him for rescuing Marius.

Fauchelevent brought his brother Ultime, who could not have looked less like Valjean. All three of them were in hysterical tears by the time they finished recounting the story of how Valjean was smuggled out of the convent so he could walk back in through the front door, and their misadventures with the coffin, and then all three of them went to Jeanne's house to tell the whole tale again. Charles Myriel brought his entire household, boasting with great joy to not only his sister and their former servant, but to his wife, who had died before he joined the priesthood, of how Valjean had multiplied the gift he was given, silver and mercy alike, to share it with so many others.

After the first few 'days' he realized he would never get anything done in the garden if he kept permitting visitors and then receiving them inside, and simply remained on his knees in the dirt when people arrived.

He had never been so prone to tears in life, but it seemed that each person who wanted to speak to him found some new way to make him weep. For nearly all his life he had been set apart from others, save Cosette and, to a lesser extent for those few years, Fauchelevent, and now he was constantly being called on by people who knew who he was, what his life had been like, and spoke warmly to him all the same. At first he felt as if his heart would stop every time he heard someone shout, "Valjean!" but soon enough it became commonplace. 

His name was his own again.

Jeanne came to see him often, and sometimes brought in tow some of her children, who now appeared as adults rather than spend all their afterlife in childhood; they looked in on Thomas, who lived a modest life as a laborer in Paris, and Jeanne explained as well that their mother and father had moved on to new lives, a choice that was open to all at any time. Some of the children said they would do so as well someday, and he thought he understood -- they had died so young that they had scarcely begun to live during their short lives. His parents, too, had been young... not children, for they had been old enough to have two of their own, but hardly the sort of full life he had led, even having lost nearly twenty years to prison.

Fantine was his most frequent visitor, even once he was settled, and they checked on Cosette often. It helped, thinking of seeing her as something he shared with Fantine, to relieve the temptation for him to watch her constantly. And, too, she was happy, well-loved by her husband, and carrying on his charitable work. She did not need him... but she loved him, had missed him when he was absent, and had forgiven everything he feared would turn her from him. Someday, hopefully many decades hence, he would see her again. 

Jean Valjean had never been so happy.

*

He was becoming accustomed to his life in paradise. Many of those who visited in the first days and weeks of apparent time after his death did not come again, and others only sporadically, but there were others who called on him regularly, and whom he visited in return -- besides Fantine and Jeanne, there were Fauchelevent, Myriel, and to his surprise some of the revolutionaries. His garden was flourishing; he was thinking of expanding it.

It was Champmathieu who started him wondering. He had not been in that first wave of visitors, but one evening he came knocking. The only reason Valjean knew him was the resemblance between their faces, for he looked a different man than he had at his trial, young and strong and well-fed. (Valjean himself had chosen to keep his white hair, for it had been the ordeal of Champmathieu's trial that had made it so, and he did not wish to forget it, but he had gladly shed the decade that had passed between that day and the day of his death.) 

They had shared stories into the night, for they both knew from the case against Champmathieu that their lives had been more than passingly alike, and as he lay in bed later that night, he could not help but think of the circumstances surrounding the trial, and he could not think of that without thinking of Javert.

He wondered then why Javert had not come to see him yet.

He thought on it again the next day. It did not take him long to decide that he would like to see Javert; there had been moments in life when he had wished he could reach the man through his unswerving devotion to the letter of the law, and when he thought on the changes that paradise had instilled in others he had spoken to, in himself, he wondered... how might Javert have changed, and what would remain the same? 

When he tried to call on Javert, however, he opened his eyes only to see his own garden still before him. 

Perhaps Javert did not want to speak to him. He would have been here a little longer by the calendar of the living world, but who knew how that had translated into his own time. Perhaps he was still working through something. Perhaps even his best self simply disliked Valjean.

He asked Fantine when he saw her next, while he worked in his garden. "It has occurred to me that there is one I have not seen, although his death preceded mine by several months, and when I tried to visit him, I could not. You knew Javert in life as well -- have you met him here?"

Fantine's lovely face fell. "Oh, Jean. I have seen him, for I was sent to see if I could reach him, but he is... trapped."

"Trapped? Surely he is not being punished, when so many other sinners like myself are walking in paradise right now."

"No, not at all. There _are_ some whose unlearned lessons are less gently taught than others, but they are not truly being punished, only made uncomfortable for a while, and he is not one of them. No," she said, her voice full of sorrow, "this is something he has done to himself. Most of us, like you, have some guidance before we begin to create our own surroundings, but some people do so instinctively, before anyone can approach them. Javert is one of those... but the world he made was created in and of the same despair that drove him to end his own life. We sent many guides to him, but he has not acknowledged any of them; when I was there, he looked right through me."

"My God, what a terrible thing, to make a Hell of one's own in the midst of Heaven. But then why could I not go there when I tried to see him?"

"That is for your own protection. It is not safe to enter such a place. Javert has a strong will, and the world he has created around him is just as solid and real as your house and garden, but it is made of hopelessness and self-recrimination. In his mind, there is no way out of it -- and once inside, it is all too easy to believe it, and become trapped just as he is. Even trained guides go in pairs, so one may pull the other back to safety, and the danger is greater for those who knew him in life. You may have known him better than anyone else who has tried."

"And yet I knew almost nothing of him. What is being done now, then?"

"We send a pair of guides occasionally to check on him, but he does not react to them, and there has been no other change. If he will not respond to any of them, then all we can do is wait for him to come out of it on his own."

Valjean looked down at the strawberry patch he'd been weeding, but he could not focus his attention on the plants. "How long will that take?"

"You know there is no answer to that question that means anything here, Jean."

"I also know how Javert felt about mercy and forgiveness in life; you know it as well as I do. If he is left to find his way on his own, he may never escape -- or he may not find his way out until everyone he knew in life has moved on, and there are only strangers left to greet him. What a sad paradise that would be! I know what it is like to set oneself apart all one's life. It is a wound you cannot acknowledge, lest it cripple you. Now that I am here, it is healing -- _because I am no longer set apart_." He stood, brushing the dry garden dirt off his trousers. "Bring me to him, Fantine. You can be my safeguard, can you not?"

"I was afraid you would ask me. Jean, this is a bad idea. You don't know what it's like inside the darkness of someone's soul. There is no hope in it; he is reliving his worst memories, twisting them... some of them may also be _your_ worst memories."

"Then perhaps I will be able to use that to reach him. Or perhaps he will want to see me least of all, but I cannot know about this and not try, Fantine."

"I wish I did not know that to be true, but I do. I will bring you, but you must do whatever I tell you to do. If you do not, you could end up trapped as well, and if you become trapped, you will not be able to help Javert. You will forget that he is trapped and you are there to help him."

"I will do as you say."

"Listen carefully, then. We will go to where Javert is. I will be able to see and hear you, and what you are seeing and hearing. You will be able to hear me when I need you to, but not see me, because you will be immersed, and I will not. If Javert knows you are there, I will give you instructions, which you _must_ follow, as you must follow any other instructions I give you. If he does not, which is what I expect to happen, I will let you keep trying for a while, so that you know you have done everything you can, but when I say it is time to leave, you must follow."

"I understand." Surely Javert could not fail to react to the sight of him for long, even if he might clap him in irons, depending on the memory.

She bade him take her hand and close his eyes.

*

"You can open your eyes now."

He opens his eyes and is surprised, for what he sees before him is hardly the sort of nightmare he was expecting. It is only an empty street by the Seine, one he thinks he might recognize if he looks around for a moment -- yes, there he sees the Pont-au-Change, and there the pont Notre-Dame. The sky is dark, probably clouded, for neither the moon nor the stars are visible; there is a sputtering streetlamp on the nearest quai that produces more shadows than useful light. 

What he does not see is Javert, because he does not see anyone -- no, there is a silhouette on the quai, nearer to the pont Notre-Dame, a tall man in a greatcoat leaning against the parapet. No one else is on the street, whether because it is late or because Javert imagines it so. He walks toward that figure, who does not turn at the sound of footsteps even though they seem very loud to Valjean's ears. 

Just when he has gotten close enough that he might be able to recognize Javert if the night were not so dark, he sees the figure remove his hat, and set it down on the top of the parapet. The man turns just so, and in the dim lamplight Valjean can see that it _is_ Javert. Then he climbs up to stand on the parapet, and Valjean, realizing in horror what he is seeing, shouts his name and starts running.

It is too late -- Javert sways for a moment atop the parapet and then topples over, and Valjean does not think, does not register that there is also a voice shouting _his_ name. He leaps, he dives, he falls...

He falls and keeps on falling, never hitting the water that should have been below. There is only falling now, falling and trying and failing to reach Javert, who does not even flail or struggle as they plunge endlessly into blue-black darkness.

And then, instead of landing, he is suddenly on his feet, half-blinded by the sudden transition from blackest night to daylight, and Fantine is shouting at him.

"Never do that again! My God, Jean, you scared me half to death!"

It occurs to him that she has a legitimate reason to be upset. "I... I am sorry, Fantine, I did not think at all before I jumped."

"I can see that! _Never do that again!_ I told you to follow my instructions, and what is the very first thing you do? Throw yourself into the Seine while I shout at you not to move!"

"I did not hear a word of it," he admits. There are people milling about, but no one seems to hear or see him as they pass.

"Jean, this is dangerous. If you were so easily drawn in, that fast--"

"I saw him jump! I would have done the same thing if I had been there in life--"

"That is the problem!"

"And now I understand better how easy it is to forget this is not real; I will not get lost in it again."

"If I see the least sign that you are ignoring me or cannot hear me, I will pull you right out this time."

"I understand, Fantine." 

All at once he realizes where he is and what he is seeing. He is standing in the rue Saint-Denis where it meets the rue de la Chanvrerie, the smell of gunpowder still in the air, a few piles of broken furniture pushed to either side of the street. The men who pass by him are police and national guardsmen, barking out reports to each other. 

Two lines of bodies lie on the cobblestones: one in uniforms, the other in a mishmash of everything from fine clothes to rags.

There are a few older men among the dead on both sides, but most are painfully young. Some may be fathers of young children, some are barely more than children themselves... and some are children still. All are bloodied. There is blood in the street as well that the rain has not completely washed away.

Ahead of him he sees Javert, walking slowly down the street, and hurries to catch up with him.

"Javert," he calls out, but there is no sign the other man hears him at all. The passers-by have become indistinct; he supposes that this is Javert's perception -- that this is based on a memory but, he reminds himself, it is not real.

He passes Javert and turns to face him, and Javert's steps, already unhurried, slow to a stop to avoid a collision. He has seen the look on Javert's face before, when he let him go from the barricade, and again when they crossed paths as he carried Marius, but he paid it no mind in life, thinking only of bringing Cosette's beloved safely home. Now he can see just how unsettled Javert really is right now, how lost. 

"This is not real," he says softly.

Javert, still unresponding, turns his gaze down to the bodies at their feet. The youngest casualty of the barricade lies there, the boy Gavroche. 

"He is here," Valjean says. "He steals tomatoes from my garden for the fun of it, though I would give him as many as he asked for, and he could have his fill just by thinking of them anyway. He'll be glad to see you when you join us, for everyone else has grown used to being on the wrong end of his clever verse by now. For as long as he can still fluster you, you'll be his favorite."

Javert kneels down beside the boy, his head bowed, and after a moment he reaches out to brush the child's untidy hair off his forehead. Valjean lays his hands on Javert's shoulders. "Javert, you do not belong here. This is past, it is gone. You have punished yourself long enough."

All of a sudden Javert stands, knocking Valjean's hands away as he does. "You there," he calls to a group of guardsmen coming around the corner, and strides quickly toward them. "Have any more bodies been found? I am searching for a wanted man who was at the barricade; he wore a guardsman's uniform without the jacket, and his hair is white."

"I am right here, Javert," Valjean shouts in frustration.

"He cannot hear you," Fantine says, gentle but firm. "Jean, we should not stay here any longer."

"He may not hear, but he reacted when I touched him. Surely there must be some way to get through to him."

"I tried it myself, Jean. He did not even always react, and even when he did, he did not believe a person who was not part of his memory had touched him. He believes what he has created; anything that contradicts it does not register."

Javert, not receiving the answer he hopes for from the guardsmen, spends a long moment scanning the two lines of bodies again before he begins walking down the rue Saint-Denis, perhaps to make his way to the embankment where they met as Valjean was coming out of the sewer.

"I do not want to abandon him, Fantine. It makes no sense to me that something like this could happen in the midst of paradise. Why should someone be allowed to suffer like this even here?"

"No one likes to see it happen. Even a man like Javert doesn't deserve such a thing. When I first learned that it could happen, I wondered why, if someone was deemed worthy of Heaven, God wouldn't descend in a pillar of glory to free them from their sorrow or something like that. But the truth is that we are... on our own, here. Our material needs and whims are met with just a thought, but just as in the living world, there is no one else but us to embody God's love to each other. And just as in the living world, we must learn to accept that love, and it is harder for some than for others. You will not be abandoning him if you give him time. We won't stop trying... we just don't want anyone else to endanger themselves when he is so clearly not ready to hear them. Please, Jean, let me bring you back now."

He does not want to leave. 

He does not want to leave, but he knows Fantine is worried, and he knows Fantine will see this through where he cannot.

"I will return with you," he says, reluctantly. "But please, keep me informed."

"I will, when there is anything to tell. Now, close your eyes."

*

Fantine brought him back to his garden, and getting his hands in the earth helped to drive away the unsettled, out-of-place feeling he had after having visited Javert's private nightmares. Still, even after he had tired enough that the sun had set, and he went to bed, sleep did not come easily.

He tried to put it from his mind. His days were filled with friends and family, and every time he found himself even slightly bored, he added another bed to his garden -- that is, he added the land with a thought, and then did everything else by hand. Nor did he lack for other things to do when he tired of gardening, for he had access to a vast library of books, even some written posthumously, he could travel to versions of places far beyond what would ever have been feasible for him in life, and there was an entire network of people who taught crafts, trades, and skills to others looking to learn. He was idle only when he wanted to relax, and never lonely. Yet the memory of Javert, looking so lost and searching for him, even if it was to arrest him, kept returning. 

He was helping Charles Myriel in his garden on a cloudy afternoon when the other man turned to him in the midst of planting courgette seedlings and said, "You are troubled, Jean."

"I cannot hide it from you," he admitted with some chagrin. "I have learned that a... a person I knew in life is trapped, unable to join us here. We were not friends; in fact, we were often at odds, and yet... I cannot forget that while I am enjoying all the delights of paradise, he is tormenting himself."

Myriel drew the story from him -- how Javert had come to Montreuil-sur-Mer after he settled there, and he had learned that the new inspector of police had been a guard at Toulon. "I did not remember him by name, but I recognized him by face. He was not kind, but he was scrupulous, a man who did not accept bribes or have favorites; he was equally harsh to all. I feared he would recognize me -- after I lifted Fauchelevent's cart I was sure that he must -- but nothing came of it, and after I became mayor and he did not protest, I began to relax, until he arrested Fantine and I learned of her plight." 

He explained how he refused to allow Javert to jail her, and it had led Javert to denounce him, only to be told that he was wrong, that Valjean had already been found. "I was stunned. It is a wonder I managed to keep speaking to him, for here he was abasing himself before me, insisting I must sack him in disgrace for the wrong he had done me, when he was right all along, and at the same time I had just learned that another man would be imprisoned for life in my place."

Then too he told the story of how Javert had arrested him in triumph after his confession at the trial, how he had discovered Valjean by sheer coincidence in Paris and they had fled to the convent, how their paths had crossed again when Thenardier had him captured at the Gorbeau house, and finally how he had come to find Javert captive on the barricade, and claimed his life in order to free him. "I could say that I would have done it no matter who it had been, and that is probably true; I cannot stand by and watch someone die if there is a chance I could prevent it. But I cannot say it meant nothing to me that it was him. It was a shock, to see him there. And he... he expected to die by my hand. When I set him free, he gaped at me like a hooked fish, then told me to kill him."

Last of all, he described their meeting on the embankment when he found his way out of the sewers with Marius, and the carriage ride that followed. "He was silent and still the whole way there. Not a word, not so much as a twitch. It was the same after we delivered Marius to his family, and I asked to stop at home before he took me in; he may as well have been a statue. It was strange even at the time, but I was so tired... truly, I should have known something was not right when he let me walk up alone. He disappeared without a word. A week later, I heard that he had taken his own life, and I did not know what to think."

Myriel had listened through it all, occasionally asking a question to keep him talking as they worked, and now he laid a hand on Valjean's shoulder, gentle as always. "I can see why. You knew this man for thirty years. He was a danger to you, but also a connection to a past you feared to share with anyone else."

"I was relieved," he admitted, his gaze turned toward the soil beneath his hands and knees. "I was grateful to know he would not knock at my door. When I met him on the barricade, and after, I was ready to give myself up, but by the time a week had passed, I had changed my mind; I wanted to cling to the time I had left with Cosette. But also, I did not understand why he had done it. The paper suggested he must have been mad, and I thought, perhaps he was, to let me go like that. The Javert I knew all those years would never have let me out of his sight. I wondered if I should have tried to follow him, when I saw that he had gone. But my life went on, until it did not, and then... I wondered why I had not seen him here."

He looked up to face Myriel again, sitting back on his heels. "Fantine told me what had become of him, and I convinced her to take me to him. It was..." He closed his eyes briefly in sorrow. "I saw him jump into the Seine. I saw him return to the barricade after it fell and check the bodies in the street to see if I were among them. He looked... lost. And I left when Fantine insisted on it, but my thoughts keep returning to the fact that he is there, alone, while I am surrounded by love."

"I believe that feeling alone and disconnected is what keeps people trapped like that in the first place," Myriel said, his voice calm and filled with compassion. "It has been true of every one I have seen. What do you want to do?"

Valjean's eyes snapped open to fix on Myriel, hope welling up in his chest. "I want to go back. Javert is a stubborn man who treats himself as harshly as anyone else; it will take someone patient and determined to reach him... not strangers checking in occasionally to see if anything has changed. He will never free himself if that is the only contact he has."

Myriel stood up, smiling down at him as luminously as he had when Valjean was dragged before him. "And if I were to bring you to him, can you tell me what would reach _you_ , some words that you will answer to even if you are trapped in another man's nightmares?"

He reached up to clasp Myriel's hands, pulling himself to his feet. "Anything at all, if you are the one speaking. When I met you in life, I was all but lost to hate and despair. If you could reach me then, nothing will stop me from answering when you call my name."

"Then let us go, my friend, and by the grace of God may you do the same for him."

"I will try." Javert would not be moved by the sort of kindness and mercy that had broken and remade him, but he believed he could get through to him, given time.

*

This time, when he opens his eyes, he knows himself to be in Hell.

He stands in a quarry, sheer walls of rock rising up all around him. The sun beats down from a cloudless sky, heating the rocks until the entire quarry becomes near to an oven. All around him he hears the sounds of men laboring in the brutal heat -- hammers driving picks and wedges into the rock, groans of exertion, shouting, sometimes the crack of a whip -- and as he turns to get his bearings he sees them, bare to the waist, covered in dust, some burned by the sun, a few exhausted with no shade to rest in. He has been one of them, may _be_ one of them; he does not know if he wants to search for himself. 

Then he sees Javert, standing off a ways with another guard. This Javert is young, barely more than a boy, and ill dressed for the heat in his guard's uniform. He holds himself as if he wants nothing to do with the man beside him.

"I will speak with Fantine," comes Myriel's voice. "I expect she will be disappointed with me, but I'll try to keep her from yelling at _you_. And she cannot make you return if you do not wish to."

"Tell her... tell her I am sorry to worry her, but I need to do this. I won't make the same mistake I did before; all I will do for a long time yet is observe."

"I will check in on you sometimes, to make sure you are still answering when I call. Look after yourself. I expect to have your help in my garden again soon, Jean."

And then he is alone in Toulon.

Not alone to look around him, of course, for the quarry is still full of prisoners at work, and the pair of guards supervising, but as before, no one shows the least sign of noticing him. He walks over to Javert and the other guard, whose face is vaguely familiar, and he watches and listens. The other man is bored and talkative and full of contempt for the prisoners and Javert alike, while Javert interacts with him as little as possible, and the heat bears down on everyone like a tangible weight.

Nothing notable happens. The work day ends; the guards round up the prisoners and bring them back to the jail. Javert's shift ends too, and he eats a dinner little better than what the convicts got, reads for a while in the library with a dour expression, and then goes to the guards' bunkroom, where he exchanges his uniform for a nightshirt and lies awake in his bunk for a long time before falling asleep... and immediately waking again, because none of it is real, a reminder Valjean does his best to repeat to himself throughout the next day, and the next, as he watches Javert's drudgery and his own, though thankfully he has not seen his past self yet here.

For days he still expects some significant event to take place; instead there is only more of the same interminable tedium, and he grows angry -- he survived nineteen years in the living Hell that was Toulon as a prisoner, working like a beast of burden and being treated no better, and Hell to Javert is to remember _watching_ it?

It is not until he begins to pay closer attention to Javert alone that he starts to understand. 

A prisoner is whipped for shirking his work, and Javert delivers the punishment. This, too, is nothing out of the ordinary; he has seen Javert wield the lash before, both in the real Toulon prison and here. But he has averted his eyes before, and now, watching him closely, he is sure that, even through the lens of his hatred, he would have noticed and remembered if he had ever seen a guard look so miserable and full of self-reproach as Javert does now. 

The more he watches Javert, and not the events Javert is reliving, the more he sees how the hopelessness of Toulon takes its toll on him. It is almost as if he can see the older Javert superimposed on the younger one, every day more disturbed that he can only relive what he has already done, though he would not have expected Javert at any time to be so bothered by his own past actions.

*

It is no surprise to Valjean when Javert lies down to sleep in Toulon one moment, and the next he is standing by the Pont-au-Change, leaning against the parapet with his head in his hands.

He tells himself he will only watch this time.

He tells himself as he runs toward the edge that he only wants to look down into the river after him.

He tells himself this right up until the moment he leaps after Javert, unable to stand by and watch.

This time, he dives into the water. The swirling current tosses him around until he cannot tell up from down. Once, his fingers catch at cloth... but it is pulled from his grasp the next moment, and he cannot find it again. His limbs begin to tire, his lungs begin to burn from holding his breath... and again he is somewhere else.

*

He watches himself lead Javert from the Corinthe into Mondetour lane and cut the martingale. "You are free," his past self says, and he watches Javert gape at him like the sun has just come up in the west. He watches Javert button up his coat as if it is a suit of armor and turn to leave, then stop and shout, "Kill me instead, why don't you."

Now nothing stops him from following Javert from the barricade, and he listens to him give a dull and perfunctory report on his capture and release to M. Gisquet, the prefect of police. Gisquet is sharp enough to try to send Javert home after this ordeal, but Javert will have none of it. Again he returns to the barricade, and this time Valjean follows him in silence, watching him search the bloody streets, and then on to the embankment at the Champs-Elysees, when he was so exhausted after lugging Marius's dead weight through the sewers that he scarcely remembers it from his real life. He watches Javert stare his past self down nose to nose from a bare inch away, then call him 'vous' for all that he is covered with filth.

He climbs into the carriage with them, squeezing in next to the unconscious Marius, and watches Javert sit like a statue beside his past self. They are both so tired and so wary of each other, and now that his attention is on Javert, he is so obviously not himself. Even at the time he had recognized that something was off, but he had been bone-tired, consumed with preserving Cosette's happiness even if it came at the cost of his own, and he had not questioned it when Javert disappeared.

Now too he follows Javert where his past self did not, straight to the Seine and along the quai des Ormes, past Le Greve, to the now too-familiar parapet near the corner of the Pont Notre-Dame where Javert stands for what feels like hours. He is just beginning to wonder if he has watched long enough when he sees Javert straighten up-- and instead of taking off his hat and climbing onto the parapet, he leaves. Hurrying after, he follows Javert into the guardhouse, and reads over his shoulder, astonished, as Javert writes.

By the time Javert has finished, Valjean's cheeks are damp. This is why Javert spent so long revisiting Toulon... this is, no doubt, why the official notice from the police said he was mad. 

He trails Javert out into the black night again, back to the same spot on the parapet, and stands beside him in silence. 

Several minutes pass like this before Javert leans forward to down look over the parapet, and Valjean mirrors him. There is nothing to see; the moon and stars are buried behind clouds, and all the houses nearby are dark. What little light there is does not reflect from the roiling water below. 

Then Javert removes his hat and sets it aside, and Valjean cannot stop himself from reaching for his arm.

"Javert," he says, "please, listen to me."

Javert turns, his eyes going wide as he recognizes who is clutching at his arm, and they stare at each other. He is too stunned at finally being acknowledged to say anything at first, so it is Javert who speaks.

"You! After all the times I hunted for you and could not find you, why can I not escape you now?" He tries to pull his arm away, but the effort is half-hearted, and Valjean holds on.

"I mean you no harm, Javert. Come away from here and let me explain--" He tugs Javert gently by the arm, trying to draw him away from the quai, but Javert stands fast.

"No, even you would not come after me. I am seeing things; you are not real." This time he wrests his arm from Valjean's grasp, trying to back up and hitting the parapet, then backing along it instead.

"This is not real, you have already done this, but _I_ am real, I am trying to save you--"

"I do not want to be saved!" Javert shouts, and then they are both silent as the words echo through the empty streets. "I cannot be saved," he chokes out, his shoulders hunched with tension. "I must be going mad. You were not-- you are not here. There is no reason for you to be here. I am imagining this -- what nonsense, imagining you would come to stop me! Why would you stop me, when you will be free of me at last, and I will be free of you, you damnable contradiction of a man! Your very existence confounds me! If I should let you go free, I would be bound by duty to confess my own crime and submit to punishment under the law... and yet, if I should arrest you, my superiors would praise me for the very thing that assured my damnation. If I am to be damned, let it be for this; I submit my resignation to God." He casts his gaze over his shoulder to the parapet and the river below, but does not move yet.

"Javert..." His voice is near to a whisper, and he reaches out to offer his hand to Javert. "You are not damned. This is not--"

"Do you think I do not know that I am in Hell?" Javert interrupts him, shouting again. His eyes are wild. Then, quieter, "Yet, if you are here, then this cannot... no, you are not here, you are not real! Whether you are a devil sent to torment me or a figment of my imagination I do not know, but I will not listen to you!" He climbs the parapet swiftly and stands atop it, looking down at Valjean warily. 

He wants to lunge forward and grab Javert and pull him down, but he fears that any sudden move might make him jump, or worse, fall. "Please, Javert." He keeps his voice as calm and even as he can. "This is a Hell of your own making only. Come with me; you do not belong here."

Javert shakes his head vehemently. "Do not-- you are not-- leave me _be_!" He looks lost again, looks _afraid_ of Valjean's pleading, and it makes his chest feel hollow to see it. 

"Just... come down, please," he tries again, as gently as he can. "I do not want to watch you do this again."

Javert stares down at him, his gaze for a moment intent and searching, and Valjean's heart leaps with hope -- surely now he will come down, surely he must believe. 

Then the lost look returns to Javert's eyes. "This cannot be real," he murmurs, and falls backward.

Valjean leaps over the parapet in a way he is dimly aware should not be possible. Again he plunges into the water... but this time, instead of being tumbled about by the turbulent rapids that should have lain below, he simply sinks into calm but endless depths, unable to gain any purchase in the water at all by moving his limbs. He can see Javert below him, indistinctly, and they sink deeper and deeper until he cannot hold his breath any longer. His mouth opens to gasp for breath and the water rushes in, but as if in a dream there is no fear or pain, only a vague awareness that he cannot breathe like this -- and then he is on his feet again, but only for a moment before he crumples to the ground, his eyes hot with tears.

He has made everything worse.

If he had gone after Javert that night--

No, there is no use in thinking on it now, they have both died, and Javert is so tied up in knots even now...

He has never imagined that Javert might have been so torn because of him, or have questioned his convictions so much as his letter revealed, and now he does not know if he can bear to keep doing this. It was hard enough to see Javert so obviously troubled and be unable to make him hear at all, but this... this is so much worse. This is not impersonal sorrow at seeing anyone suffer needlessly. 

When did Javert become dear to him?

He does not know if he can bear to keep doing this... but he knows he cannot bear to leave again. 

It has been... he does not even know how long it has been or where he is. He pulls himself together enough to wipe the tears from his eyes and stand up, and finds himself in the shipyard at Toulon once more.

It is a long time before he can bring himself to try to speak to Javert again. When he does, there is no indication he is heard or seen at all.

He has no way to keep track of time, and he supposes that time is as meaningless here as it is in paradise, but it seems like months, even years, that Javert is fixed on the memory of Toulon. Every day is the same as the last, and Valjean sinks into despair. Day after day, he watches the worst of how one group of men may treat another like beasts, and become beasts themselves. Watching like this, he does not even have the small moments of human contact that he had when he was a prisoner.

He begins to forget that he is not a prisoner. In his clearer moments, he thinks Javert has forgotten too.

Then, it is as if the clouds have parted, and a ray of light shines down on him suddenly. "Jean. Jean Valjean. Do you hear me?" It is Myriel, and his voice alone lifts a great weight from Valjean's shoulders.

"I am here," he responds.

Then it is not only his voice; Myriel steps into the shipyard from nowhere, embracing him, and Valjean nearly weeps from gratitude. 

"It has been some time, Jean." The words are spoken gently, his eyes concerned. "You are missed. Have you made any progress in reaching Javert?"

"I... don't know," he admits. The wound is still fresh, but it is a little easier to think about, now that he can tell Myriel instead of rehashing it endlessly in his own head. "He... I was able to speak to him once, but I do not think he believed I was real." He can't bring himself to explain more than that.

"That is more than any of us ever managed. No one would fault you for returning, even for a short time."

He is tempted, and all the more because Myriel is not trying to convince him to return, or to give up. Just a respite -- he has not even slept since he arrived. They have been in Toulon for so long and nothing has happened; surely he will not miss anything important. And yet, he thinks he is beginning to realize what he must do.

"I will stay," he says. "But I thank you. I was... losing hope, and you have reminded me why I cannot." He meets Myriel's eyes, at peace. "Tell Fantine and my sister that I'm sorry to be gone so long... but I may not be back for a long time. I won't leave without Javert."

Myriel clasps one of his hands in both of his. "Then I will take my leave. We will be waiting, Jean. For both of you."

He steps into nothing, and Valjean is alone again... and yet not. He walks to Javert's side, and stands with him. This is why he is here; even if Javert may not know it, he will not be left alone here again.

The workday ends as the sun is going down, and the chain gangs return to the prison. Javert finishes his shift, eats... and rather than go to the library as he usually does, instead he walks out to the empty yard, where he stands looking up into the sky for a long time. Valjean stands beside him, wondering what it is he is looking at, or for. Whatever it is, it has made the hopeless look fade from his eyes.

Eventually he lowers his head and turns, looking right through Valjean with the same searching expression, and he feels as if time has stopped around them. The prison is dark and still and quiet, save for the summer sounds of crickets and birds.

"You don't belong here," Javert says haltingly.

He is too surprised to even speak at first, his mouth falling open, his heart beating wildly. 

"Neither do you," he says at last. 

Javert shakes his head slowly, and his intent stare fades into a puzzled expression, the moment passing -- he looks around him, and Valjean realizes, crestfallen, that Javert has slipped back into his memories and can no longer see him. 

And yet... Javert saw him there, when he was not even trying to get his attention, and it is the most encouraging sign he's had since he began.

Javert returns to the guards' bunkroom, Valjean following, and lies down to sleep... and Toulon fades away into the streets of Montreuil-sur-Mer.

He stands beside Javert as his past self lifts Fauchelevent's cart until the gathered crowd has the faith to do the rest; he accompanies Javert through his days as Madeleine is made mayor and he grows ever more suspicious. They are walking together, even if Javert does not know it, when Javert sees the fight between Fantine and Bamatabois, and Valjean stays at his side through the arrest. There is a haunted look in Javert's eyes as he watches Fantine crawl across the floor to kneel at his feet and plead with him, and a tremendous relief when Valjean's past self intervenes.

When Madeleine finally orders Javert out of his own police station, Valjean keeps company with him as he makes several circuits around the town, muttering imprecations all the while. Finally he returns to his own spartan room, where he sits down to furiously write what Valjean discovers, reading over his shoulder, is a letter to one M. Chabouillet, of the Paris prefecture of police, outlining all the evidence he has collected that Madeleine is Jean Valjean. It is a very detailed list. He no longer remembers clearly on his own what Javert once told him about the things that made him suspicious -- he suspects he is about to be reminded -- but plainly he never had Javert fooled at all.

When Javert has finished the letter, he sits at his desk for a long time, staring down at it in dismay, and Valjean cannot stop himself from laying a reassuring hand on Javert's shoulder. 

Javert looks up sharply, right at Valjean beside him, and his eyes widen. "What are you doing here, Valjean?"

He's better prepared this time for it to happen, but still unsure what to say. "You don't deserve this," he murmurs. "You don't deserve to be alone." 

Javert turns his gaze away. "I don't want your mercy," he says, and then he pushes the chair back from the desk, and gives no more sign that he knows Valjean is there as he prepares to sleep. He brings the letter to the post office in the morning, starting a flurry of rumors that Valjean was quite unaware of in life, preoccupied as he was with Fantine's care and trying to get the Thenardiers to deliver Cosette to her.

Weeks pass. Compared to Toulon it is nothing; one day is much like the next, but the work is more varied, and though Javert is often unkind to those Valjean thinks are most in need of kindness, and regrets it now, he also deals with people he respects, and who are grateful. 

Inevitably, Javert receives the reply from Paris. Valjean is with him when he receives it and watches him open it at once, then go still.

Javert is like a whirlwind after that. He writes to the judge at Arras, insisting he must see this man Champmathieu with his own eyes, and when invited he is on a carriage the same day. When he finally gets a look at Champmathieu, he is meticulous in examining him, in questioning every detail... and then he is shattered, as he comes to believe he has falsely accused Madeleine, and the present Javert is no better, reliving it with the knowledge that he was wrong this time instead and could have sent this man to his death.

Javert returns from Arras in a fog, and goes straight away to the mairie the next morning, dejection written in the line of his back and the slope of his shoulders. Valjean walks into his own office alongside him, watching as Madeleine makes him wait. 

It occurs to him that he hardly remembers this conversation, except as a series of shocks followed by great anguish which he then had to hide.

Then his past self finally acknowledges Javert, who begins in solemn, resigned obeisance to explain that a grave crime has been committed -- to the complete bewilderment of Madeleine -- and he has to clap a hand over his mouth to stifle a slightly hysterical laugh. It does not get any better; Madeleine is so flabbergasted, Javert so serious, and even knowing the outcome of all this, he himself is so tightly wound that he cannot help but find this ridiculous. It is a joke he would share with Javert if he could -- you were right all along, and look at the face I made! -- but he dares not risk it now.

Javert tells the whole tale of Champmathieu and his visit to Arras, and throughout it he is something of a cipher, which is entirely unlike him. There has always been something about Javert which is uncomfortably candid, easy to read. When this conversation took place in life, even as devastated as he was by the news of Champmathieu's predicament, he could not fail to notice Javert's deep shame and self-abasement -- and in this world Javert has trapped himself in, his expression has always been a window to what is going on in his mind now as he relives these things. Now Valjean is not sure what he is seeing, only that Javert seems unsettled, pensive. 

When the story is done Madeleine begins to hurry Javert out, which sobers Valjean a bit as he thinks of the night that followed Javert's unwitting revelation. _That_ he remembers all too well, the indecision and despair, the realization that someone would suffer no matter what he did. He is glad to leave it in the past.

Valjean walks with Javert from the mairie, lost enough in his own thoughts that he is only vaguely aware they have turned down a little-used alley. He wonders what come after this -- his arrest is likely, but after that he does not know what Javert may revisit. It does not register at first that Javert has stopped and turned toward him.

"I saw you there, standing beside me," he says, frowning as if he is particularly puzzled by Valjean. "I don't understand."

Valjean's heart has leapt into his throat, and he is careful as he replies, "That is what I am here for, to stand beside you."

"I don't understand," Javert repeats, his voice rising, "why would you-- you do not belong here, you should be-- happy." The last word is barely voiced, and he turns his face away. "Leave here, Valjean. Do not bother with me."

"I will not be happy while I know that you are alone and suffering." He holds out his hand to Javert, offering without asking, though he is sure his eyes are full of all the pleas he is not making.

Javert looks at his hand with a sort of terrified longing, and the arm hanging at his side jerks, just enough that Valjean can see it, but he shakes his head slowly. "You cannot be real," he says as if to himself. "If I say I will go with you..."

He realizes then that Javert thinks he will disappear, or revile him, the moment he believes he can have this.

Javert turns away again and continues walking, and Valjean is too heavy-hearted to speak, even if Javert still hears or is willing to listen.

He is numb, disheartened. Javert goes about his duties for the next few days like a man condemned to death, having been completely in the dark about what Valjean was going through or the events in Arras. Valjean stays beside him, but does not try to speak or even pay that much mind to what he is doing, disconsolate. They both know what the letter is when it arrives. He watches Javert boggle at it, and then spring into action.

The terrible avenging angel that is Javert coming for Madeleine has nothing but deep regret and sorrow in his eyes. When Madeleine says, "You have killed her," he is stricken, and when he finally leads the man to jail, there is no satisfaction in his expression; he looks defeated. His pursuit after the past Valjean's escape is passionless, implacable; he knows what the outcome will be. Valjean remains with him still, silent and dispirited. He thinks sometimes that Javert is looking at him, but Javert does not address him again. 

The hunt moves to Paris, and Javert with it, the foremost expert on the subject of the fugitive. Valjean does not know what to make of M. Chabouillet, secretary to the prefect of police, who makes a sincere personal apology to Javert for having chastised him over his suspicion of Madeleine when he was right from the first, and whom Javert plainly respects still. He has lived weeks and months in Javert's life now, and his suspicion that Javert has no close friends, no avocation, has proven correct; this M. Chabouillet is the closest thing to an exception he has found, and he is a distant superior. Perhaps less distant soon, with Javert to transfer to Paris... but he is also only a memory. If the Javert of the past was less isolated in the orbit of his patron, it does no good for Javert now, who cannot confide in anyone who exists only in a memory, and will not acknowledge Valjean.

The past Valjean is caught. He remembers clearly the bitter disappointment of being so close to reaching Cosette, whom he did not even know yet, and being stopped just short, and at the same time he is almost completely disconnected from thinking of his past self as himself by now. Javert is not much involved, but arrives to confirm it is him. In life he was as viciously triumphant as at the first arrest; now he goes through the motions with distant, defeated eyes.

Javert lies awake for a long time that night, in a dingy room in a run-down inn near the offices of the prefecture, and Valjean sits on the edge of the bed and wonders what kept him awake this night in life. He can tell when Javert realizes he is there: he goes still, barks out, "Go away," and rolls onto his side away from Valjean. 

"I will not," he says softly. That is the only thing he can do, he realizes. He cannot argue Javert into trusting him, let alone argue him out of distrusting himself. There are no words that will convince Javert that he is real. All he can do is remain with him, and not give up until Javert believes. 

At last Javert falls asleep, and the cramped room fades away.

*

It is different after that. 

By now he has followed Javert through enough of his life that there are few surprises left, and he begins to see a sort of pattern in the things Javert revisits -- which ones he relives most often, which ones follow which others and why. And then, as well, he has changed his outlook. He will make his case with perseverance. On the days he is feeling more optimistic, he thinks of it as proving to Javert that he is not alone in his darkest hour. When he is more frustrated, he thinks of it as a contest of who is the more stubborn.

He is not expecting to go straight from Toulon to the embankment by the Champs-Elysees; that is new. 

Marius is delivered to his grandfather, and they take the carriage to the Rue de l'Homme-Arme. The ride is as awkward as ever, and Javert's eyes fall on him across the coach, pensive. Javert handles the business with the driver, and they walk together to the door of number 7, where Javert sends his past self inside alone. 

Just for a moment, when Valjean's back is turned, he reaches out his hand after him. Then he shakes his head, turns sharply, and walks away.

He has never seen Javert do that before.

The walk to the Seine is all too familiar by now, the dark and silent streets, Javert's uncertain pose and downcast gaze, the rushing of the current. It has been a long time since the last time Javert came back here, and Valjean is already dreading what comes next. 

This is the one thing he will never be able to inure himself to. 

He comes up beside Javert as he leans on the parapet, and looks down at the dark water below. There is little to see, the rapids swallowing up the dim light.

"Valjean." Javert's voice is quiet enough that he almost misses it over the sound of the river.

He turns to face Javert, trying not to get his hopes up. Javert will probably tell him to go away again. "Yes?" 

"You're still here." Javert has straightened up from where he was leaning on the parapet, and he looks at Valjean like he is afraid Valjean will disappear or shatter if he makes one wrong move. "Why would you still be here?"

"I'm here because I'm not going to leave without you," he says carefully.

Javert frowns at him. "If there is a Hell, then there must be a Heaven."

"There is one," Valjean confirms.

"That is where you belong," Javert says firmly.

"I have been there," Valjean says. "It is wonderful beyond imagining. But after I had been there for a while, I realized that you were not in it."

Javert laughs, a sharp mirthless sound. "And for that you abandoned Heaven for Hell?"

"I will tell you the whole story someday, while you help me weed my garden."

"I don't understand you," Javert says slowly. "You have been-- why would-- you have seen everything. Everything I've done. And you are here. Why would you still be here, if you are real?"

"Because I have seen all those things, and I have seen your eyes as you relive them."

After this Javert is silent, watching him, for what feels like hours and is probably seconds before he speaks again, disquieted. "You have been beside me... even when I put you in chains."

"And that is where I will stay," Valjean murmurs, "until we leave together. I would rather stand by your side in Hell than leave you alone in it again, and I will wait as long as it takes."

Javert's arm makes several abortive movements toward Valjean. He opens his mouth, but says nothing, closes it again, then repeats the entire process. Valjean only realizes he's been holding his breath when he can't any longer, breathing out shakily.

"We could also go now," he says, holding out his hand and proffering a tenuous smile, "if you'd like."

It's almost a physical thing, the last of Javert's resistance giving way. He lurches forward like a dam has broken inside him. Valjean opens his arms and Javert all but falls into them; he wraps his arms around Javert and just holds on, as if he can make up for every time he has wanted to touch Javert since he got here all at once. Javert is warm and solid and clutches at him just as desperately, curled in on himself to hide his face in Valjean's shoulder. He closes his eyes, and thinks of home.

*

When he opened his eyes again, they were standing in front of his house, and he was so relieved, so exhausted. "We are home," he murmured, and Javert drew back with a start, looking around, and then crumpled into his arms again with a low sob, overwhelmed to be here, to be free, after so long trapped in his own despair. "We are home," Valjean repeated, smoothing a palm down his back. "We are safe. Everything can wait until we have slept, if you think you can sleep?"

"For a week," Javert mumbled into his shoulder, "maybe a month."

"I think I could too," Valjean admitted. "Here, let us go in." He guided Javert inside, and they were both so tired that the best he could do was make sure they landed on his bed when they fell over into an exhausted, fully-dressed heap. 

*

The first few days after they returned were quiet. Javert was still too raw for visitors; there were moments when he shouted at Valjean over nothing, and moments when he clung to Valjean like a lost child. He showed Javert the house and the garden, and explained how things like food and time and sleep worked. Javert became bored easily, with no existing hobbies and no work to do, so Valjean set him to weeding some of the more easily identifiable plants in the garden, and told him, as promised, how he learned of what happened to Javert, and been unable to forget, and how he had come to decide that he would stay with him until they could leave together.

A few visitors began to arrive for Valjean, a succession of loved ones come to welcome him back, congratulate him on his success, and tell him never to do any such thing again. 

"I am not sorry at all," he told Fantine. "For making people worry, yes, but not for doing it."

"You were right about him," Fantine said, smiling. "He needed someone who would not give up."

Javert mostly avoided his guests, remaining indoors when they were in the garden, or behind closed doors when he tried inviting them into the house, and only occasionally allowing himself to be seen. He insisted he did not mind their presence, but he declined every invitation to participate, until the morning he came out of the bedroom, rumpled and half awake with his hair untied, to find Fantine sitting at the kitchen table.

"Valjean, are you-- oh." He looked ready to flee until Valjean gestured to the seat beside him, and then he sat on one edge of it, glancing between the two of them like a nervous bird ready to take off.

"I'm glad to see you here," Fantine said firmly. 

"How can you--" Javert began, but Fantine cut him off, raising her voice to drown him out.

"Do you not know better now than you did then?"

"I-- yes," Javert said, taken aback.

"Then you are forgiven. You did not kill me, you fool; I was dying. Besides, Jean is fond of you, and I am fond of Jean, so we will have to learn to get along."

Javert plainly did not know what to make of Fantine, but he relaxed slightly in his chair, and ate when Valjean put food in front of him, and after that he let Valjean introduce him to some of his other visitors, though he did not often stay long. He met Jeanne, Fauchelevent, whom he remembered a little, even Champmathieu, who was too grateful Javert had told his story to the one man capable of saving him to care about anything else -- and Myriel.

"You robbed this man!" Javert exclaimed, incredulous, when Valjean told him that Myriel had been the bishop of Digne.

"So he did," Myriel said, laughing. 

"When I was caught, I claimed he had given me the silver as a gift," Valjean said, "and when they hauled me before him, not only did he confirm my story, which was quite untrue, he gave me more, bade me not to forget my promise to use it to lead an honest life, which I had never made, and called me his brother. That is how _I_ was saved from Hell after nineteen years." He told Javert the whole story later that night, everything that happened between his release from prison and his rebirth from the flames at Montreuil-sur-Mer. 

*

The first visitor to come for Javert was Gavroche. Valjean remembered suddenly when he arrived -- it seemed like a lifetime ago -- telling Javert about how the boy was here and would want to see him. Javert met him in the garden while Valjean thinned out some onion seedlings on the opposite side. Gavroche was his usual self, which was to say, witty and blithe enough to make up for the fact that Javert had no idea how to speak to children even if he had never seen them dead, and by the time he left he had Javert stifling a smile as he shouted accusations of tomato theft after him. 

A slow but steady stream followed, and Javert received them all with some astonishment and consternation. Former police colleagues made pleasant casual visitors that he welcomed easily. Those who had been victims of a crime he had solved were less comfortable, because they were grateful, something he still accepted only awkwardly, but he could understand why. Enjolras came to argue politics and theology, and found Javert more willing to listen than expected; after he had gone, Javert was discussing the workings of heaven and earth alike with Valjean for days.

When they had first returned, they spent very little time apart, save when Javert wanted to be alone, or was avoiding Valjean's guests. As Javert grew more comfortable, and more accustomed to the idea that people wanted to see him, and he them, he all but ordered Valjean not to stay home on his account and to go visit his friends and family, and even left the house to see people himself. One day he returned with a tear-tracked face and introduced Valjean to his mother. He had some of their story from the two of them while he showed off his garden and sat in the kitchen with them over a pot of tea, and more from Javert in the dark of night -- his birth in jail, the father he had never known, the way he was raised.

"I learned to hate what she was, to hate the idea that I might be the same. She never wronged me. All I remember is a mother who loved her child."

Valjean listened to his grief and anger and held him in his arms until it passed, and he told Valjean about going to meet her.

"This truly is heaven," he said in wonder. "That I am given the chance to right so many wrongs, and heal so many wounds, is more than I could have asked."

*

"I cannot introduce you to Cosette properly," Valjean said the next day, "and I hope I will not for many years yet, but I should like you to meet her all the same." He had looked in on her since they returned, but alone. And now there was news Valjean had not expected, for she was embroidering an infant's gown, making giddy plans with Marius for their future child, and Valjean shed many joyful tears, a few on Javert's shoulder and many more on Fantine's when they sent for her, and he told Javert stories of how he had gone to get Cosette after his escape, and how they had come to the Petit-Picpus convent. In the night he admitted to his heartache when he realized that she was growing up and would leave him, his resentment of Marius, and Javert held him and told him about his own acquaintance with Marius, expecting him to laugh.

Valjean did laugh. "Do you know, I was there?"

"That was you!" Javert sputtered, then began to laugh as well.

"I saw you there, of course, and that was why I disappeared, but I did not know before now that Marius had been involved."

"It is strange, that we crossed paths again and again. I wonder now if we were meant to."

"I am sure of it," Valjean murmured, drowsy.

*

The first time a man Javert had once sent to prison came to call, Javert shut himself up in his room for the rest of the day and did not emerge until after Valjean was already lying in bed. He slipped into the room silently and lay down on his back on his side of the bed, arms folded over his chest, insular in a way that was not like him at all, not here in the dark with Valjean. When Valjean laid a hand on his arm, he rolled over and clutched at him immediately, and Valjean held him and did not press him to speak.

"I do not understand how he can forgive me," Javert mumbled against his now damp neck. "I do not understand how _you_ can forgive me."

"Everyone who is here is here by the grace of God," Valjean said. "For we have all sinned, as all humans do. Not one of us deserves that grace, nor can we, because grace cannot be earned; it is a gift, and can only be given. Having received that gift, and knowing what it means, how can we not forgive each other as we ourselves have been forgiven? As for me," he drew his arms tighter around Javert, "I know you too well to do anything but love you."

"I do not deserve you, or your love, but I suppose you will say that too is a gift."

"You know me as well," Valjean said, smiling.

"I do," said Javert.

*

Javert's room had already been there the morning after they returned, in addition to the guest room already there, without Valjean consciously adding it to his house. He used it as a private space, but he had never slept in the bed there. Neither of them had ever been accustomed to sharing a bed with another; Valjean had woken up that first morning with long grey hair getting into his face, sure that there were more elbows and knees in the bed than two men possessed, and all of them were poking him in some tender place. But when it grew dark and they both were tired, Javert had lurked in his doorway until Valjean invited him in again, and the next night he had simply come in, and though they never discussed it, they had not spent a night apart.

"This is your home," Javert said to him one morning. It was early yet, barely light; they had drifted into wakefulness at the same time, Javert sprawled half over Valjean with an arm slung around his waist, and Valjean was comfortable enough that he could have fallen back to sleep just like that, but he could tell even before Javert spoke that something was on his mind. 

"It is," he murmured, not sure where Javert might be going.

"I thought-- that is, I wondered," Javert began, then lifted his head from Valjean's shoulder and shook it. "No, that is not what I mean to say at all."

This was something important, then. Valjean opened his eyes to see Javert frowning sharply, though it softened when he met Valjean's drowsy gaze. 

"Am I expected to-- no, what I mean is, do you want me to have my own? Home, I mean." 

So that was what he was thinking about. Valjean wanted to say, this is your home too, but if that was not what Javert wanted... "If you want one, then I want you to have one. But you are also welcome to stay here."

Javert looked as if he might let that stand, at first, then asked, "For how long?"

"For as long as you wish to," Valjean said, soft and serious, "my home is yours." 

"And do you-- is that something you do not mind, or is it what you prefer?"

"It is what I prefer." He did not like to think on Javert leaving. Yes, he was sure they would see each other often -- but they would not pass each other in the kitchen; they would not be here, like this...

"And this," Javert said, propping himself up a little bit more, leaning in close. "Lying beside each other at night. Is this something you allow, or would you choose it?"

His heart was racing. He was breathing Javert's breath, afraid to move lest he wake up with Javert's mouth _not_ inches from his own, and he had not even known he wanted this, had never let himself consider it. 

"I would choose it," he whispered.

Javert closed the distance, brushing their lips together for a moment, and Valjean's breath shivered out of him. When Javert drew back, Valjean followed, yearning for more than just that brief touch; he pressed his mouth to Javert's firmly, if clumsily, and Javert made a soft sound, fingers clutching at Valjean's side. Javert's lips were soft and dry; he parted them and their mouths fit together instead of simply touching, and Valjean had never imagined that a kiss would be like this, at once perfect and not enough. He was aware of every place they touched down the line of their bodies. 

Overwhelmed by emotion and sensation, he pulled back and met Javert's wondering gaze with his own. 

"I am home," Javert said. "My home is you."


End file.
